shortcut for creating a Map from a List in groovy?
I've recently came across the need to do exactly that: converting a list into a map. This question was posted before Groovy version 1.7.9 came out, so the method collectEntries
didn't exist yet. It works exactly as the collectMap
method that was proposed:
Map rowToMap(row) {
row.columns.collectEntries{[it.name, it.val]}
}
If for some reason you are stuck with an older Groovy version, the inject
method can also be used (as proposed here). This is a slightly modified version that takes only one expression inside the closure (just for the sake of character saving!):
Map rowToMap(row) {
row.columns.inject([:]) {map, col -> map << [(col.name): col.val]}
}
The +
operator can also be used instead of the <<
.
Check out "inject". Real functional programming wonks call it "fold".
columns.inject([:]) { memo, entry ->
memo[entry.name] = entry.val
return memo
}
And, while you're at it, you probably want to define methods as Categories instead of right on the metaClass. That way, you can define it once for all Collections:
class PropertyMapCategory {
static Map mapProperty(Collection c, String keyParam, String valParam) {
return c.inject([:]) { memo, entry ->
memo[entry[keyParam]] = entry[valParam]
return memo
}
}
}
Example usage:
use(PropertyMapCategory) {
println columns.mapProperty('name', 'val')
}
Was the groupBy method not available when this question was asked?
If what you need is a simple key-value pair, then the method collectEntries
should suffice. For example
def names = ['Foo', 'Bar']
def firstAlphabetVsName = names.collectEntries {[it.charAt(0), it]} // [F:Foo, B:Bar]
But if you want a structure similar to a Multimap, in which there are multiple values per key, then you'd want to use the groupBy
method
def names = ['Foo', 'Bar', 'Fooey']
def firstAlphabetVsNames = names.groupBy { it.charAt(0) } // [F:[Foo, Fooey], B:[Bar]]
Also, if you're use google collections (http://code.google.com/p/google-collections/), you can do something like this:
map = Maps.uniqueIndex(list, Functions.identity());